Hardwood Floors in Brookline, MA

Four dollars to $5.50 per square foot for sanding and refinishing, so an 800-square-foot Coolidge Corner one-bedroom comes to about $3,200 to $4,400 before stain, and 1,000 square feet to $4,000 to $5,500. More than half of Brookline's units, 51.4 percent, are in buildings of five or more apartments, so the building's insurance certificate and elevator rules are part of the quote conversation rather than an afterthought. A whole townhouse in Cottage Farm runs $6,000 to $12,000 and up.

It cannot. Brookline prohibits parking longer than one hour on any town street between 2am and 6am every day of the year, with a $30 ticket, and only the Transportation Board grants exceptions. Our vans arrive each morning and leave each evening, and the belt sander and vacuums stay inside the unit overnight. Daytime is the simpler part: a 1,000-square-foot floor takes 21 to 33 sanding hours, so a Washington Square job means three or four daytime visits rather than one long stay.

Article 8.15, the Noise Control By-law, lets contractors work from 7am to 7pm on weekdays and 8:30am to 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Condominium rules in the 1920s brick buildings around Coolidge Corner are often narrower than that, sometimes weekdays only, so we schedule to the stricter of the two. Machine time on a 1,000-square-foot unit is 21 to 33 hours, and coats of Bona Traffic HD dry in 1 to 2 hours, so both finish coats fit inside one permitted day.

Enough for one more sand in most units. Apartment houses spread along Beacon Street from Richmond Court in 1898 through the 1920s, and a 3/4-inch strip floor of that vintage began with about 1/4 inch of wood above the tongue. Each full sanding removes 1/32 to 1/16 inch, and once fewer than about 3/32 inch remain, nail heads start to surface. After a century and two or three earlier refinishes, we gauge the remaining thickness at the estimate and, where it is thin, propose replacing the worst boards or a screen and recoat.

Twenty percent of Brookline's housing was built between 1960 and 1979, much of it in mid- and high-rise buildings where parquet was glued straight to concrete. That parquet is thin, often 5/16 inch, so a full sand is frequently impossible; a buff and recoat with Bona Traffic HD restores the surface when the finish is worn but the wood is sound. If tiles are loose or water-stained, the realistic path is a new glue-down floor, and patterned installs such as herringbone carry $8 to $10 and more per square foot in labor alone.